The Maestro

by T. Davis Bunn

  Then he turned to Jake and asked him to introduce his guest. At Amy’s urging I rose with the towering giant, heard him say, “Like to introduce our new lead guitarist, Giovanni di Alta. Gianni’s from Como, that’s a city in northern Italy. He’s one of the most talented musicians I’ve ever heard.”

  “Amen,” intoned Amy.

  “We’re certainly happy to have you with us today, Gianni,” the minister told me. “We hope this will be the first of many worship services you share with us.”

  I mumbled my thanks and sat down, more nervous than I had been since my first performance in front of Fraulein Rohr’s class.

  The minister then turned the service over to a young blond woman who approached the battered upright piano set to one side of the stage. She greeted the congregation and invited them to stand and join in worshiping the Lord in song. I watched as with the first lyrics a few people raised their hands and began clapping in time to the music. I kept my hands by my sides, listened to the joyful noise, watched Amy’s long fingers make little dancing circles in the air between claps, felt enormously out of place.

  When the congregation was again seated the minister returned to the podium and invited everyone to join him in prayer. I listened as he began to name people and their specific needs. This family has a daughter who was rushed to the hospital last night and the doctors still cannot explain why she is having trouble with her breathing, except to say that she has had an allergic reaction. Please pray for them. This man’s wife left last week for America after receiving word that her sister had delivered triplets. Please pray for them. This woman has been laid off, and is busy looking for work. Please pray for her. This young man, a friend to many of us, is a political refugee from Ghana; he has just received a telegram from his mother saying that his brother has died. No further information was given, he cannot get a telephone line through to his home town, and he cannot return. Please pray for him and his family. Pray for them. Pray.

  When the prayer was finished he asked people to open their Bibles to Psalm 40, then waited until the pages stopped rustling. Amy swiveled around so that I could read with her. Someone from the congregation approached the podium and began reading the passage. I watched him, watched the others following along in their own Bibles. Some took out pens and marked the passage. I turned back to the Bible that Amy was holding out for me, scanned the page, and froze.

  Words on the opposite page reached out and held me fast. From the thirty-eighth psalm, I read:

  I am like a deaf man who cannot hear,

  Like a mute, who cannot open his mouth;

  I have become like a man who does not hear,

  Whose mouth can offer no reply. . .

  For I am about to fall,

  And my pain is ever with me.

  I confess my iniquity;

  I am troubled by my sin. . . .

  O Lord, do not forsake me;

  Be not far from me, O my God.

  Come quickly to help me,

  O Lord my Savior.

  I do not know how long my eyes were fixed on the page. Again and again I read the words, felt their power echo deep within me. My pain is ever with me. I fight and struggle to hold on to the joy of my music, but I need the push of drugs to find that surging inspiration, that force to lift me above the pains and memories that weigh me down. I am like a mute who cannot open his mouth.

  I felt a gentle hand on my back and lifted my head to find Amy looking at me with concern. She mouthed the words, are you all right? I nodded, turned my head toward the front, felt the words continue to ring in my head. My pain is ever with me.

  “The fortieth psalm is David’s public testimony,” the minister was explaining. “ ‘I’ve got something to share with you,’ he is saying. ‘I’ve got some good news. The Lord has treated me like a loving father would treat his child. He has succored me, and I have begun to heal. He has lifted me from my pain and sorrow and darkness.’ ”

  Hastily I turned back to the Bible, located Psalm 40, and read:

  I waited patiently for the Lord;

  He turned to me and heard my cry.

  He lifted me out of the slimy pit,

  Out of the mud and mire;

  He set my feet on a rock

  And gave me a firm place to stand.

  He put a new song in my mouth,

  A hymn of praise to our God.

  Many will see and fear

  And put their trust in the Lord.

  “What better way is there to describe our troubles than a slimy pit?” The minister paused as the congregation murmured agreement, then went on. “Trouble is like quicksand. Once we get in, it is almost impossible to get out. The harder we struggle, the deeper we sink.

  “In the midst of depression, what happens to us? We lose the ability to laugh. To sing. To hope. The empty void within us reaches out with dark eager hands and envelopes our lives. We become trapped in the dark pit of hopelessness, and we feel there is no chance of our ever escaping.”

  I felt as if I were listening to a concerned friend who was speaking directly to me. There was no longer any awareness of the surroundings, of the other people, of anything but this message. There was no room in me for anything else.

  “Yet not only did the Lord rescue David; He lifted David from the pit of his despair and placed him upon a rock, gave him a firm foundation upon which to stand and live his life. And what is more, God put a song in David’s heart. A new song. And what kind of song is it? What does the psalm tell us?

  “First, it is a song of deliverance. It describes how God has rescued him. He brought David out of the horrible turmoil of his earlier life. There is a deliverer, David is telling us. And what He did for David He will do for us if only we will let Him.

  “Second, it is a song of security. ‘He placed my feet upon a rock. He established my life upon a firm foundation.’ The Lord can handle life’s troubles, and so can we, once we learn to keep our eyes upon Him, to seek His guidance in all things.

  “Third, it is a song of gratitude. The remainder of this psalm speaks of how grateful David is to the Lord for His salvation.

  “Isn’t it something, how this wealthy society of ours is so ungrateful for what it has? Life is reduced to a constant hunt after more of the same—more goods, a better home, nicer clothes, more money; never taking time to give thanks for what we already have. It strikes me as both funny and tragic, how people never seem to realize that they are so ungrateful because what they have has no true value.”

  He adjusted his glasses and looked down at his podium. “Fourth, this is a song of experience. We must personally experience what the Lord can do in our lives in order to understand His divine majesty. No one can put this power into words, no one can live this lesson for us. We must surrender to His guidance in order to understand. All that anyone else can do is follow David’s example and witness. Look at the lives the Lord has changed; hear the song; be filled with awe and respect; put your trust in God Almighty.”

  The minister paused and looked out over the group assembled in the dingy auditorium. “What kind of song are you singing?” he asked. “Everyone sings in one way or another; all of us give a testimony to others through how we lead our lives. The question is, what message do you give to others? What do you hold dearest in your own heart? What song does the world hear through the witnessing of your life?”

  His voice carried the strength of utter certainty as he said, “It is only when you have turned it over to the Lord and asked Him for a cleansing of sin and a directing of your footsteps that you will know a true and lasting peace. It is only when you know His peace that you can sing as David has, sing of new joy and hope.”

  ****

  That evening I went over to Mario’s for dinner. His apartment was one fair-sized room with a tiny bathroom and a kitchen too small for two people to stand in together. Pipo sat on the sofa bed and I in one of the canvas-backed chairs and listened to Mario sing snatches of songs in three languages as he prepared dinner.


  “Mario took me for a walk this afternoon down that shopping street, you know, the fancy one, what’s it called?”

  “Koenigsallee,” Mario called from the kitchen. “Yeah, that’s some street. Every idol money can buy.”

  “They got this window, nothing in it but watches,” Pipo said. “One of ’em, a Rolex I think it was, cost fourteen thousand dollars. You hear what I’m saying? Man, if I could afford a fourteen thousand dollar watch, I could afford to be late.”

  I asked, “You live in Cologne, right?”

  “Used to, yeah. My girlfriend’s with a mission project down there. We’re getting married in three months and we’re gonna live up here. Things are looking good for the band. Time to find a place closer to the heat.”

  “Pipo’s lived all over the place,” Mario’s voice drifted unseen from the kitchen. “If he doesn’t pick up and find another home every two or three months, he starts getting antsy.”

  “I lived in L.A. for a while before I met the Lord,” Pipo said. “Los Angeles, yeah, that’s some city.”

  “Pipo was one of the best-known percussionists on the West Coast,” Mario said, appearing in the doorway, looking at his friend with quiet pride. “Then the Lord reached down and called him to His service.”

  “More like, Jesus reached down into the gutter and fished me out,” Pipo said. “I tell you, man, I took so much acid in that place I thought Picasso was a photographer.”

  “Pipo decided it was time to leave a few bad habits behind,” Mario said, winking at me.

  “I was living on mushroom omelets and girls who specialized in permanent damage,” Pipo said. “I was a dedicated disciple of the John Lennon school, you know? Artistically talented pessimists. I had this big poster over my bed, this nasty-looking mama in fish-net stockings and a see-through outfit. Underneath, it said, ‘So what do I get for being a good little girl?’ Real healthy California attitude.”

  Mario came back in with an enormous bowl of salad and set it down in the middle of his glass-and-chrome table. “Pull up a chair, Pipo; soup’s on.”

  Pipo stood, stretched, did a boneless slide into the chair opposite mine. “I’ve done just about everything you’d expect a pop musician to do. Stuffed enough powder up my nose to buy Colombia, went through traveling companions like there was a revolving door beside my bed. All the time, man, I kept up this major fairy tale in my head. You know how it is, right? If all you do is smoke weed, you keep telling yourself how much better you are than the guy who’s heavy on pills. You get into acid, you got the guys sticking needles in their veins to look down on. And all the time, you keep telling yourself how you got everything under control. What a joke.”

  Mario came in and set down steaming plates piled high with pasta. He sat down and asked Pipo for the blessing.

  Pipo bent over his plate and said, “Father, thanks for not turning my brain to burned toast. Amen.”

  Mario watched him a moment. “That’s it?”

  “Sounded pretty profound to me, man.”

  Mario lowered his head again. “Heavenly Father, we are truly grateful for this time of sharing and friendship. Please bless this food to our bodies, and all our many gifts to the doing of your blessed will. In Christ’s holy name, amen.”

  Pipo raised his head. “You think maybe next time I should bring a script?”

  “You gotta learn to read before it’d do any good,” Mario said, and to me, “Buon appetito, Maestro.”

  We ate in the companionable silence of friends who did not need unnecessary conversation. The pasta was great. Mario beamed over our compliments, confessed that it came from a little Italian grocery around the corner.

  “Like the ones your parents used to have?” I asked, remembering.

  “Maestro, the first time I went in there, I felt like I was coming home. Say, that reminds me. Mama told me to tell you hello.”

  “How are they?”

  “They finally bought their little place down in the Piemonte countryside, but I think they’re about ready to die of boredom. Papa never had the chance to learn how to slow down. They can’t get over how both their boys have grown up into religious derelicts either. That’s Papa’s description. Mama calls us her untamed monks.”

  He stood, gathered plates, told me to stay where I was. I felt a sudden urge to tell them about the experience in church that morning, but could not bring myself to talk about it. Instead I asked Pipo how he had made the big change.

  “Coupla big things, lotta little ones. I got involved on this album with some real wild men, spent six months going a thousand miles an hour inside. You gotta understand, beat was king for me, the only god I knew. Man, there wasn’t nothing that’d make me happier than playing hot tunes. Nothing. I used to get outta ten, twelve hours in the studio, go down to a place in L.A. called Westwood. Real Yuppie heaven, man. Lotsa little ritzy restaurants, no place to park, all these really cute girlies with their expense-account guys walking around. So I’d show up after twelve hours in the studio, still in my tank top and cutoffs, smelling like a bear fresh outta hibernation. A bunch of Rastafarians used to get down there about sunset, smoke a little reefer, play some heavy beats on their congas. I was just about crazy enough to fit in.”

  Mario called from the kitchen, “He asked you how you got saved.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I was just getting to that. Anyway, so we got the album finished, and the next day I woke up and for the life of me could not remember who this chick was in bed with me. Or where she’d come from. Or how I’d gotten there. So I went into the kitchen, and started thinking it over, and you know what? Man, I’d been stoned for thirty solid weeks. I don’t mean once in a while for thirty weeks, no way. Stoned solid. Pills or grass or booze or something. Dropped acid two, sometimes three times a week. And all the time, I kept telling myself, this is cool, yeah, I can handle it. I’m in total control.

  “So I drove down to the beach, and just walked up and down all day long. First time in six months I wasn’t doing something. And all of a sudden I found myself just crying out at the sky, ‘Help me, God. You gotta get me outta this mess, ’cause I’ll never be able to do it myself.’ ”

  Pipo always gave off an air of barely controlled energy. Even when he was relaxed into his rag-doll state, he somehow appeared to be in motion. When he talked, he went into a repertoire of hand and wrist gestures. A quick scratch on the arm, an idle fingering of the bandages around three fingers on each hand, a brief hunching of his shoulder muscles, a rapid-fire signalling to stress a point—all swiftly brought back under control, cut off before they really started. Even the simple movements were enough to show the energy that made him such a powerful percussionist.

  “I didn’t know who Jesus was, not then. And I was too weak to stick with it, so I just kept falling. I was still having that love affair with the gutter. But I started feeling this change. There wasn’t anything I could do for myself, no way. I think even then I knew it was a gift from someone outside myself. I started staying straight longer and longer between highs. Started preferring my own company more. Started avoiding the man-eaters in high heels.

  “Then when I fell, you know, got high and started playing the little games with the chicks that hung out around the studios, it was hard to ignore that little voice inside my head. And coming down just kept getting worse. Man, I’d feel so empty. Even when I was high that emptiness’d stay right there inside me. The drugs didn’t make it go away, not ever. They just kind of painted over it for a while. I started dreading those next mornings even before I got high.

  “So I started praying, once in a while at first, then every day, then like every time I thought of it. I discovered that the days were a lot better when I prayed, and I was stronger, and I could resist temptation a little better.

  “By then I was looking for my own answers. Started reading the Bible, found some passages that really spoke to my heart. The first one was from Joshua, chapter twenty-four, verse fifteen: ‘Choose this day whom you will serve.
’ I wrote it up in big letters and stuck it where that girl used to be, over my bed. By that time I’d just about decided this grace was the best thing going, and I just wasn’t strong enough to stay around L.A. and keep from falling again. I was beginning to see a lot more clearly what my idols were, and I wanted to put as much distance between them and me as I could. So I went to Europe. Worked in London for a while, then got this offer for a studio gig in Germany, and met our man Mario here. He introduced me to Jake, and Jake told me about Christian music. Blew me away, man. Before that, I thought all there was to Christian music was hymns and funeral marches.”

  Mario came in carrying two cups of freshly brewed espresso, set them down, patted me on the shoulder, and left the room without speaking. I watched him return to the kitchen, waited until I heard the clatter of dishes before saying to Pipo, “I think I can understand what you’re driving at. But I feel like I’ve got to know more before I do anything.”

  “Hey, you know what, this is really great.” Pipo stretched out, set both feet on the sofa, sprawled as only he could do. “I mean, it’s nice you trust me enough to talk like this. The problem is, if I say something there’s a chance you’re gonna think I’m pushing. And I don’t want that.”

  I tried to ape his relaxed posture but could not get rid of the tension. “Go ahead and push.”

  “So you can push back, right?” Pipo grinned. “What is it Mario calls you, that name in Italian?”

  “Maestro.”

  “I like it. Maestro. Yeah, the more I hear you play the better it fits. Maestro, there’s never any way that you’re gonna know Jesus until you ask Him into your life. This is one lesson you’ll never find in a book or through talking to others. Long as you play that game, all you’re doing is holding Him out. Deep down inside you know it, too. You feel that emptiness, that hunger down in your gut, so you stick around and play the game, talking to me and Amy and listening to Jake in the prayer group, right? Always the outsider. You keep telling yourself you’re still learning, gotta know more before you can take the big step. That’s a lotta baloney, Maestro.”